9 Months Old!

Braden is nine months old, and he continues to grow so fast! He is all over the place and into everything.

His new stats:

• Weight: 17 pounds 10 ounces (10th percentile)
• Height: 28.5 inches (58th percentile)
• Head circumference: 44.5cm (26th percentile)

Here are his new discoveries:

• The curtains - he LOVES to play in them. He hides behind them and then pops out and laughs hysterically.
• Henry - up until recently he has only paid attention to our dog, Rocco. He has now discovered one of our cats, Henry. He thinks Henry is SO funny. Henry also enjoys playing with Braden's toys in the basement, so Braden thinks Henry is playing with him.
• Door stoppers - he found these awhile ago, but I'm not sure I ever posted about it. He loves flicking the door stoppers. He actually pulled one out of the wall the other day, but it turns out that they just screw right back in. Who knew?
• Socks - he pull his socks off now and just puts them in his mouth. Yuck. Luckily it's warming, so socks will be worn must less frequently.
• Drawers - he has figured out that to open drawers, all you have to do is pull. Ugh.

His new accomplishments include:

• Constant babbling... he started with "baba" and then quickly learned "gaga", "dada", and "mama". His newest is "yaya". He isn't saying "dada" or "mama" in reference to either of us yet, so we don't consider any of those his first words.
• First tooth: he got his first tooth this past month. It's so cute!
• Climbing stairs: Oh yes, he just crawls right up them. We didn't even teach him that. One day he was just crawling and got up to the stairs, so of course we were right behind him, and then he just proceeded to crawl all the way up the stairs.
• The fist bump: This might be my favorite thing so far. He hold his fist out for you to bump! He will also try to fist bump himself in the mirror :)

Eating patters:

• He has finally outgrown the milk intolerance! Hooray for him, and double hooray for our bank account! He is now on Enfamil Gentlease. I can buy two 22 ounce containers for the price of one 19.5 ounce container of the old stuff. And, I can often find it on clearance because stores have an excess supply. Score!
• He drinks 18-24 ounces of formula each day. Once when he gets up each morning, one before each nap, and one before bed.
• We are slowly moving on to finger foods. Of course, he loves puffs. He also likes these rice wafer things call Baby Mum-Mum (strange name, I know). Gerber also makes these things that look like Cheetos... he likes those too, but makes a GIGANTIC mess when he eats them. Holy moly. We try to feed him a bit of what we eat, but he's not too sure about everything yet. Though he had made it perfectly clear that he would eat pancakes for every meal if we let him. Pancakes and cream of wheat, strawberries and cream flavor. Not plain flavor - he spit that right back out!
• He still has baby food three times a day because he doesn't eat enough finger food to fill him up. His new favorites are: (1) strawberry, apple, banana combo and (2) squash mixed with applesauce and a bit of cinnamon. Don't ask how we figured that out... but cinnamon is good for you!

Sleeping Patterns:

• He is FINALLY sleeping through the night! YAY!!!!
• Daylight savings time is our new best friend. Instead of going to bed at 6:30pm, he is now going down between 7:30 and 8:00 and then wakes up around 6:30am. Sometimes he has his bottle and then goes back to sleep for another hour or so. Sometimes he doesn't!
• He is finally on a nap schedule - two naps a day! One around 11am and one around 2 or 3pm. We usually get one long nap and one shorter nap for a total of 3 to 3.5 hours a day.
• He sleeps on his stomach and then ends up sleeping on his knees because he pulls his legs up underneath him.
• We have to put like four pacifiers in his crib with him because he ends of throwing most of them out of the crib at some point. We go in to get him in the morning and there are pacifiers all over the floor!

We are loving every minute with him! We are so glad that the weather is getting warmer because he loves to be outside. He loves walks and just playing with his toys outside. We ate dinner outside one night this week and he thought that was the greatest thing ever. For awhile, we were getting frustrated because we wanted to be able to go out to eat, but going to dinner with Braden just was not working out very well. He was just cranky because it was getting near bedtime. One day we went out to lunch instead - Best. Idea. Ever. He is perfect around lunch time if we put him in the highchair and give him puffs or something. We are very happy that we are able to go out to eat again! Though I feel bad for the people that have to clean up our mess when we leave... puffs end up everywhere.

18 Weeks

This past Sunday marked 18 weeks down and 22 to go. Still feeling great! I was able to feel the baby kick this week, finally! I've been waiting for it :) If I had to guess, this baby is transverse (sideways) with his/her feet to the left and head to the right. Braden started out transverse too, but his head was to the left and feet to the right. Nothing else to report! Things are great!

Updates

We cannot wait for the Spring and Summer. This crazy winter weather this year has really caused a problem for Braden. He has had one cold after another. He was then sick with some kind of stomach bug. He recovered from that and the came down with another cold last Saturday. He was so snotty and had this horrible cough. On top of that he is getting his first tooth. So the poor kiddo was just plain miserable! Finally, today the nose is better, but that cough is still lingering. Although, according to this photo, he had his moments of happiness - if you look at his eyes, you can tell they were all red and puffy :(

He is actually sleeping like a champ, so lets hope it keeps up! He goes to bed somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00pm. Lately, he hasn't been waking up until 5:30am for a bottle. He then goes back to sleep until somewhere between 6:45 and 8:00am. I really like the long stretches of sleep that we are getting, but 5:30am is a weird time to get up to feed him. On days that I have to work, it's pointless to try to go back to bed after that - mostly because I can't fall back asleep and then I have to get up by 6:30 anyway. So, I'm just up that early...

Naps are a different story... he has been fighting them to no end recently. He will stand up in his crib and cry because he doesn't want to sleep. Eventually he will get so frustrated that he throws his pacifiers all over the room - we put every paci he has in the crib with him! Eventually he will give it up and go to sleep, but his naps are typically 45 - 90 minutes. Maybe.

On another note, our house is still on the market and we hope it sells soon! Mostly the reason people don't like it is because it backs up to 146th Street. We knew that was going to be a problem going into this, but really, we don't even notice the traffic noise! I see these houses online that I really like, but obviously we can't go buy one until our house sells. I think that God might be trying to teach me patience... something I'm not very good at!

And, Rocco chewed a hole in our couch. He has never done anything like that before. Ever. I came home to a big hole in the back cushion of the couch with stuffing everywhere. I guess that will be the couch we get rid of when we move!

Here are some photo updates of Braden, and a video too!

He went to Target with Mom and it was the first time riding in the cart like a big boy! He enjoyed it and I'm SO thankful that I don't have to drag in the car seat all the time anymore! That is quite the pain.

He was pretty excited here (in case you can't tell from his arm waving up and down like crazy)!

After months of having zero interest in the floor mat, he has rediscovered it.

Braden is really picky about when he laughs. He wants to make sure it's something really worth laughing at! I guess this was it! Now, you can show him the video - he watches it and then laughs at himself laughing. It's pretty darn cute!

The Waiting... and Some Updates

For the most part, this pregnancy is going by fast. Even faster than the last one, which I didn't think was possible. But I guess this time I have a baby to chase around already so it makes it go by fast. 16 weeks down and only 24 to go - that seems a bit crazy to me.

For me, this is the most nerve wracking part of the pregnancy. I had a doctor appointment last week and everything was good. I know everything is fine, but until I can feel the baby move, I'm pretty stressed out about the whole thing. So I'm just waiting... and waiting... and waiting. But of course, any little thing that I feel I spend a few minutes trying to analyze if it was the baby or not. Not yet. With Braden, I didn't feel him move until 18 or 19 weeks, so I'm sure I still have a few weeks to go...

Here are some updates:

• Finally, FINALLY, I feel great! No more nausea and no more being sick. I'm finally able to enjoy the pregnancy. I was really afraid that this one was going to be miserable and I was so bummed because I really loved being pregnant with Braden.
• I'm still pretty tired all the time, but I guess you'll have that when you have a 8 month old that still doesn't sleep through the night :)
• They say that you show sooner with your second, and that is definitely the case! You can tell I'm pregnant. I think that I didn't look this pregnant with Braden until at least 20 weeks.
• I'm at that very awkward stage when it comes to finding clothes that fit. I'm in maternity pants now, mainly because they are more comfy. However, the maternity shirts are too big still, but my normal shirts are too small. And, a lot of the clothes I wore with Braden stretched out when I was bigger toward the end, so they don't fit yet. Finding an acceptable outfit it quite the challenge these days...
• Nothing tastes like it should anymore. I can't stand the taste of coffee anymore (major bummer) and it seems like everything I have a craving for just disappoints me.

Maybe I'll find the time to get up in the morning, get showered and dressed, and take a picture. Maybe. :)

Braden is 8 Months Old!

Our baby is 8 months old today!

As I mentioned before, in the past month he began crawling, sitting up on his own, and pulling himself up.

Here are some things he is doing now:

• He is now pulling himself up on anything and everything and is beginning to take steps while holding on to things.
• He is saying more sounds now. He says 'ba' and 'ga'.
• He is starting to be REALLY interested in what we are eating. If we are eating, he wants to eat too. We haven't started giving him solids yet, though I have given him a few tastes of things, like a mushed up piece of the banana I was eating :)
• He LOVES puffs! He hasn't really figured out how to feed himself yet, but he loves them if you put them in his mouth.
• If Mommy leaves the room he has a problem with it. He will crawl around and follow me, no matter what I'm doing.
• Not napping very well anymore. We are lucky to get a total of 2 hours a day...
• He made his bed time 6:30 - probably because he's not napping. Although, he still gets up once to eat and then is up for the day between 6:30 and 8:00.

He also had his first major sickness :( I will spare the nasty details, but it involved diarrhea and projectile vomiting... Poor kiddo was miserable. We went to the doctor and they did some lab work, which involved collecting stool samples (tons of fun). Thankfully, everything has come back OK so far. We are slowly getting back to normal in regards to sleeping and eating - everything was WAY off the norm, and it's been a struggle getting back to the pre-sickness routine.

Playing his drum

Hi Mom!
Watching Mickey and trying to get as close to him as possible.
Watching Mickey with Daddy
Playing with his friend Emerson!
Playing with the balloon, which he loves.

Sick Baby :(

We have a very miserable little guy... I'll spare you a lot of the yucky details. However, you haven't truly experienced motherhood until this happens: you go out to eat at Naked Tchopstix (quite possibly the best sushi restaurant in Indy). While you are there you feed your child sweet potatoes. After eating them he promptly projectile vomits them EVERYWHERE. All over himself, the highchair, the floor - EVERYWHERE. It was lovely, let me tell you. We are heading over to the pediatrician in the morning to see if there is anything they can do, but I have a feeling it's just a stomach bug and needs to run its course :(

Indy's Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is in Indianapolis this year! It is pretty exciting even though the Colts won't be playing in the big game this year. The Patriots against the Giants. I think that the Patriots being here is unlucky for them - they will probably have the entire city, if not state, cheering against them. And poor Eli is constantly referred to as Peyton's brother since he will be playing in Peyton's house.... at least we hope it stays Peyton's house! I guess we will have to wait and see about that. Anyway...

The city has been preparing for months - ok, probably years, but the visible preparations have only been going on during the past year as far as I can tell. Downtown has been completely transformed into the Super Bowl village and there are so many cool things going on down there. The weather has been freakishly warm for January/February so there have been insane amounts of people downtown.

We really wanted to go down and check out Super Bowl Village but the only day we could do it was Sunday, and it was not one of the warm days... it was cold and really, really, really windy. So, we did not stay that long, but from what we did see, Indy did a great job with the Super Bowl this year! I couldn't figure out how to save the map and post it here, but a link to the Super Bowl Village map is here: Map

One of the neatest things, in my opinion, is the zip line. It runs down Capitol Avenue and we saw many people whizzing by overhead. The online pre-sale tickets sold out almost immediately and people line up crazy early to get tickets the day of. Kevin was really wanting to do it, but there were no tickets when we went. They have free concerts, lots of bars and displays, and large outdoor heaters. We have heard rave reviews from the media about how great a job the city did with this Super Bowl and there is talk that Indy might get another Super Bowl down the road :)

We bundled up Braden in about 7 layers and put him in the stroller and headed out. Doesn't he look thrilled? He actually enjoyed it and didn't seem to be cold at all - he just took it all in.

The Super Bowl stuff on the side of the JW Marriott - pretty cool.

The Super Bowl letters on the Circle - they light up at night, but nighttime outings just really aren't for us anymore :)

There are Indy cars lined down Meridian Street and they are each painted with a different NFL team logo/colors. They were really awesome, but there were so many people that I didn't get any close up photos. Maybe that was a lack of patience on my part, but it was freezing!

Another shot of the letters.

The Super Bowl ice sculpture. I know that the ice sculptors didn't bet on 50 degree temps this week. I heard they melted and will have to be done again before the game.

Another ice sculpture.

All in all it was pretty awesome. We didn't do the NFL experience because we didn't want to spend the money. There was so much more that we didn't do, but I'm glad we got to experience it. That being said, I'm REALLY glad that I don't work downtown or have to go there for any purpose this week. Parking and traffic are a nightmare :)